


A Thin Coat of Gold

by swallowingstorms



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Slavery, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-21 21:14:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14922969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swallowingstorms/pseuds/swallowingstorms
Summary: Forced into slavery for crimes he knows nothing about, Tony tries to focus on day-to-day survival. Circumstances, however, continue to turn his world on its head and he finds himself at the heart of a far-reaching conspiracy, an unlikely romance, and the unexpected symbiosis of science and magic.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is loosely (oh so loosely) inspired by the Spartacus series that Starz put out a few years ago and it takes a fantasy turn, so, like the vaguest of vaguely Roman AUs. If historical accuracy is something you're into, this may not be the story you're looking for. It has about as much to do with the actual Roman empire as your typical medieval fantasy has to do with actual 10th century Europe.
> 
> Please note that tags will be evolving! So keep your eyes open if you decide to follow along.

There was nothing suspicious about the first crash.

Tony rolled his eyes up to give the ceiling a sneering look, picturing his father, staggering and unfocused, crashing about in a wine-fueled fit of bitterness. This was exactly why they were never going to get anywhere with the Kottos--Howard was too busy drinking to do it himself, and Tony was too angry to be bothered with a project Howard kept trying to hijack from him. It wasn’t Tony’s fault that Howard had pissed away all the respect he’d won for himself when he was younger--before Tony, as he so liked to remind Tony--and it wasn’t Tony’s responsibility to help him win it back.

But he had hoped, maybe, just a little, just sometimes, that they could manage to do this one thing together before Howard drank himself into an early grave. Before too long Howard would be dead and Tony would be alone, and it would have been nice to have something good to point to and think, _we did that together. Most of the time it was nothing but poison between us, but we did that together_. And the Kottos could be extraordinary. A fate changer. It could expand the fold of the empire, and restore some of the glory his father so desperately sought to recover. Maybe repair the relationship between the two of them in the process.

Shaking his head, Tony turned back to the mess on the table before him. The whole point of coming down here was to focus on his own projects, just focus on the engineering for awhile, without all the problems that came from trying to work with is father. He picked up one of several deformed clay jars he’d made, frowning at it. He knew metal; he’d had an easy enough time with the iron and the copper components. But it seemed the inner dimensions of the clay jar needed to be precise, too. _Definitely not my medium_ , he thought, giving his latest attempt a shake and scowling at the resulting rattle. Maybe, he wondered, instead of continuing with his clearly hopeless efforts at a decent jar, he could distort the copper tube to accommodate the deficiencies of his pottery skills?

Quickly warming up to the idea, losing himself in it a little, Tony jumped at the second crash. He began to grow concerned when it was shortly followed by a thud, that sounded suspiciously like a body hitting the floor above him. Straining his ears, he thought he could make out voices. More than one, so not just Howard cursing at Tony’s general existence through the floor.

For a moment, Tony let himself consider that it’s just trouble that followed Howard home from the tavern. If Howard had been out picking fights he couldn’t finish, that didn’t need to be Tony’s problem too. He would patch Howard up before bed--it would be more than the man deserved anyway. Tony could just let him take a few well-earned hits, hits Tony himself would never have the heart to deliver.

So, Tony hesitated. He spent a long moment frozen, starting at the ceiling above him, gaze locked on the spot where the thud had come from.

So, when the point of a sword pierced the ceiling where he stared, when it dripped three perfect circles of blood onto the pale wood of the table, three drops and no more before disappearing back up through the floorboards,  when Tony ran the math in his head, the odds that Howard managed to turn any fight in his favor …

He couldn’t have made it. The only door out of the basement workshop was through the forge, and he would have had to circle around the entire house, he would have walked in on the scene he’s now underneath, too late. There wasn’t enough time between his realization that something was wrong and now, there wasn't enough time for him to have done anything … but.

But he knew he was going to hate himself for that hesitation anyway.

Tony jolted into motion as he heard feet moving across the floor above him. He frantically searched for a weapon, snatching up one of the heavier iron rods from the table in lieu of any better options. He sank down, under the table, hating himself more, _more_ , but realistic about his fighting abilities. His only chance was that maybe … maybe they didn’t know he was here. Maybe they were only after Howard.

The lone set of doors leading out of the basement were open, as Tony had left them when he’d retreated down here, but they only opened out into the forge. It was mostly open area, inside and for a good distance around. If he tried to leave, he would definitely be seen.

Unless he crawled?

Intent on it now that the idea was in his head, Tony took the distance to the steps out of the basement in just a few running strides before dropping to his hands and knees to creep up the stairs. When he reached the top, he forced himself to focus on the far side, where the forge pavilion was open to the air. Away from the main building of the house, where Howard had been run through with a sword. Probably. Where Howard had probably been run through with a sword.

On his belly, Tony pushed himself across the dirt floor of the forge. It must have been Howard that sword had pierced, nothing else made sense. But could he still be alive? Tony paused, thought about the kind of force needed to drive a blade fast enough, hard enough, for it to pierce the planked floor of their home in that way. It was good quality wood, well maintained. It wasn’t scraped thin or going soft with rot anywhere. The way the blade had just appeared in the ceiling of the workshop, simply _there_ from one moment to the next. He thought about the kind of wound that sort of force could wreak.

But--but. But could Howard be alive? Tony paused, his face and belly pressed to the packed earth floor.

He could, possibly, still be alive. He wouldn’t survive the wound, not for long, not for more than a few days at most. But for now, he could still be alive. Likely bleeding out on that ridiculously elaborate floor covering he had placed in the receiving room just so he could ask visitors, “Have you ever seen anything like it?”

None of them ever had. Not the sort of visitors he had kept for the length of Tony’s memory, anyway.

It was probably just the kind of death he deserved, as graceless and abrupt as Tony had always assumed it would be. But now, faced with the reality of it, it wasn’t the kind of death Tony wanted for him, not if Tony could help it. And Tony didn’t want to be the kind of son who wouldn’t ever know whether he had crawled away from his father’s corpse, already cooling, or had abandoned his father as he lay dying. _Look at you on your belly_ , he thought.

He was near the middle of the forge, halfway to anywhere really. He could drag himself out the open wall in the back. Left, to possible freedom, right, to cradle his loveless father as he breathed his last breaths. He could stand up, walk out the door in front wall, the door to the house. He could die with his father. He could die like his father, with nothing to show for his life.

There was no pros and cons list to this, no equation. _Hey, Tony_ , he thought, _what do you believe? Can you accept a scenario where the only option that lets you live is one you can’t live with?_

So, Tony lay on the ground of the forge, frozen, as the choice was taken out of his hands.

 _You deserve this_ , he thought, as heavy, even steps approached him, _you could have stopped them if you’d paid attention. If you hadn’t been so quick to assume the worse about Howard._

Tony laughed at himself then, tears wetting the dirt beneath his face. Like he ever would have been fast enough, strong enough.

As if to prove his own point, Tony swung the bar one-handed, weak, when he thought the steps were close enough. He thought: knees, the knees are a weakness no matter who you are.

But his visitor was ready, catching the bar with the _ting_ of metal-on-metal. _You see?_ Tony sneered at himself and used the captured bar as a fulcrum, levering himself onto his back to kick up at the groin of the man above him.

It didn’t matter, in the end. His assailant caught his leg in his other hand, and Tony lay frozen, shocked, because the man’s hand, where he still gripped the iron bar, was more than simply armored. It looked to be somehow coated in metal, a perfect glove, but it was articulated, and the metal sunk into his shoulder--

Tony was unceremoniously rolled onto his stomach by a brusque foot under his hips. He felt the heavy sole of a caligae settle against the back of his neck and struck back wildly with his hands, but they were shortly captured and bound. He was pulled roughly to his feet, with what felt like a normal hand of flesh and bone, and marched him out of the forge into the street. Tony let himself be distracted, trying to peer over his shoulder at the man’s armored arm, and didn’t realize what they were marching to until it was right in front of him.

They had dragged Howard’s body out of the house.

It was nothing like what he had imagined he would find, if he had he found the courage to creep back into the house. There’s no blood, no sign of any damage to him at all. It was just how still he lay and the pallor of his skin. He was wrapped neatly in a clean, dark cloth. He was so still, and quiet, and it might have been the very first time Tony had ever seen him be either of those things.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

Tony startled at the voice, and then turned toward the speaker. He was tall, with a square-jawed and a full head of steel grey hair. He was handsome, dignified. Something about his face rattled around in Tony’s head, sent him reaching for a memory he could only just brush it with his fingertips.

He smiled at Tony, pitying, “I knew your father years ago, it grieves me to see him fallen so far.” His smile fell away, “You’ll have to answer for his crimes now, I’m afraid. It’s … it’s the law. And we are all her servants.”

“His crimes?” The words emerged from Tony’s mouth as a croak. Howard had been a drunk, belligerent and entitled, and Tony had always assumed his fall from grace had been an outgrowth of his drinking. But Tony’s handsome sympathiser was dressed in the finery of the upper class, understated as it was--the smooth lines and delicate creases characteristic of the expensive fabrics that were reserved for those of status, as well as wealth. He was downplaying his station for some reason, wearing bland colors and no insignia. The others with him are the same; coarser fabrics, but otherwise indistinguishable from their apparent leader. They didn’t look like lawmen.

“I afraid your father was a thief, Tony. Can I call you Tony? A thief and a traitor. We’ve been searching for him for some time.”

Tony frowned at that, unsure of what to say and so, for a moment, opting for silence. It didn’t track. Howard had plenty of flaws, but he had no reason to steal anything. He was meticulous about his accounting, and had maintained his wealth in good standing even as he sank from repute. Although, a snide whisper suggested, perhaps that was because a debtor attracts attention.

“Fortunately, for you, we were able to recover the stolen property,” the man Tony presumed was the leader gestured toward the far side of the house, where two carts and half a dozen saddled horses were parked out of the way of the road. One the carts, uncovered, was loaded with something large and angular, concealed under a sheet of coarse-woven fabric.

Tony wracked his brain to think of what it might be, but none of Howard’s valuables had been anywhere near that big. It looked, if anything, like the prototype Kottos they’d been working on, but that wasn’t stolen. Not from the empire, anyway. It had been born right here, in their home. Tony hadn’t thought anyone besides himself and Howard even knew it existed.

It wasn’t as if it even worked.

The man with the metal arm jerked him to his feet, and he realized the group's handsome leader was still talking, his voice only drifting faintly into Tony’s ears, as if he were speaking from much farther away than the arm’s distance he stood from Tony.

“You’ll only have to serve for the value of the manpower spent searching for him these last twenty years, not the value of the stolen goods themselves. I’m afraid I can’t do anything more than that to shorten you sentence, but I can deliver you into hands of someone invested in your well being,” the leader chuckled to himself as the metal-armed man hopped into the covered cart and lifted Tony in after him, affixing his bound hands to a ring above his head. “I don’t know that you’ll be able to think of him as a kind man, but he thought highly of your father and I think he’ll do right by you. I think he always regretted that Howard spirited you away with him when he fled” He placed his hand on Tony’s thigh, as if to comfort him, but it was a lingering, intimate touch out of place with everything that had happened today. Tony fought the urge to jerk his leg away, not wanting to reveal anything of himself that he could hide. “I think he’ll be as good to you as anyone can be expected to be.” He gave Tony’s thigh a gentle squeeze, and then stepped back and disappeared from view as the cart pulled away.

Tony looked at the ring bolted to the sidewall of the cart over his head, and then into the eyes of the metal-armed man, who stared at him, unblinking.

Wait for it, he thought, turning his eyes out the open back of the cart, where smoke was beginning to curl from the roof of his home.

 

* * *

 

As far as Tony could tell, they weren’t traveling on the paved road that ran into, or directly away from, the capitol. Given how out of the way the vicus where Howard had taken his exile was, if they hadn’t hit the main road by now, there was only one other place they could be going.

Tony watched the shadows change behind the cart, and tried not to get his hopes up. He had friends there, in Callia. Howard had made his fortune by creating weapons for the military, but when he’d been forced to cut ties with them it was novelty weapons for gladiators that had kept him, and Tony, working. Tony was popular with the lanistas, both for the weapons and armor he brought them for sale and for his own wit. It had been one of Howard’s many lessons, the value of charm, though he had largely left Tony to his own devices in determining the execution.

It would not be entirely unusual for a prisoner to be given over to a citizen to serve out their sentence. In particular, citizens charged with the execution of public works and services, like the gladiatorial games. That was the most sensible place to send Tony, it was where he was most likely to be useful.  It was probably too much to hope that he might be set to serve any of the lanistas he was friendly with, Howard had strictly kept any direct business out of the line of sight of those who held close ties to the upper class and Tony couldn’t think of any of their usual buyers who held prisoners for the empire, but just being in Callia granted him more chances of support than the capital.

He let gaze drift to his guard, now wearing a loose, nondescript tunic over the leather chestplate and pteruges that had been all he’d worn to pull Tony from the forge. “Shame you’re stuck back here with just a criminal for company. You don’t really seem like you deserve that. Got a name you’d like to share?,” he tried a smile, but the man didn’t acknowledge that he’d spoken at all, though his gaze remained fixed in Tony’s general direction. The long sleeves of the tunic were unusual, obscuring his shoulders and arms, so it was only his left hand that caught the light and Tony’s curiosity. Tony thought that if it were armor he would have simply removed it by now. He pictured the incredible, if gruesome, interplay of flesh and metal that the man’s shoulder had appeared to be.

Sometimes, when Howard had had enough to drink to loosen his tongue, but not so much as to free his temper, he would tell Tony some of what he had seen in the wider world. Marvels he’d seen in other lands, visions he’d had of what he might create himself. For awhile, Tony had tried to recreate some of the fantastic things his father had described, until he’d learned not to share his successes and lost the desire to be discern between which of Howard’s stories might be believed and which to just dismiss.

Because some of them were certainly too fantastic to be believed. Tony was ready to believe there were machines and inventions out in the world that were beyond him, or at least that he didn’t understand yet. But some of what Howard had described … it had been as inexplicable as a clockwork arm. Which was almost certainly not what Tony was staring at right now, it clearly attached at the man’s shoulder, and the muscles of the shoulder were too large to allow the finite control to wield such a thing as if were a natural limb.

No, it was surely little more than plate armor, perhaps laid directly to skin? Tony felt a shiver in his own arm as he imagined the pain such a process would undoubtedly cause.

“You’re arm is really something,” he spoke quickly, before he could think better of it. “Bet there’s a heck of a story to tell there. Why don’t you share it, help me pass the time back here?” The man’s eyes flicked to meet Tony’s, and Tony was abruptly, uncomfortably, aware of how little of the man’s attention he’d truly held, despite the fact that it had seemed those pale eyes were locked onto him before. He fought the urge to squirm, baring his teeth in an expression he hoped was more of a friendly grin and than a nervous grimace. He was all in now. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours. I don’t have anything like that to show for it, but I’ve had my share of close calls in the forg--” Tony instinctively flinched back as his guard surged forward, but he hardly touched Tony at all. He dragged up the collar of Tony’s tunic and packed his mouth with it, before casually resuming his seat. Tony pushed the makeshift gag out of his mouth with his tongue and made a show of pressing his lips tightly together when it looked like the man might move to put it back.

So much for that.

He glanced out the back of the cart and saw that he had whiled away most of the trip picking apart his guard’s strange armor in his head. The long stretches of crop fields that filled that land between the nameless vicus of Tony’s home and Callia had given way to the more built-up topography of the city’s outlying structures. The view out the back of the wagon swung as they made a turn. Tony frowned at that. They weren’t headed into the city itself then, which made Tony’s odds of running into any of the few people he knew, and any of the even fewer he thought might help him, slimmer than he had initially projected. He tested his bonds for what seemed to be the hundredth time since this journey began, but if anything they were tighter and more secure from his pulling. He tried to shake something loose in his memory, he must know _something_ about the outskirts of Callia, but truthfully he’d never been interested. Howard always wanted him to return from these little sales trips as quickly as possible, and everything Tony had been willing to risk his wraith for lay within the city proper. There were a couple forges here, removed from the more closely packed areas of the city due to the fire risk, but Tony had met the smiths who worked them in the market and not been impressed, so he’d never thought to visit them.

Mostly though, it was the sprawling villas of the upper class. They all had smaller dwellings at the city center, of course, to retreat to if there were threat of attack. But for the space and privacy most of them desired, it was the villas outside of the city. Space for entertaining, and for storing all the wealth and treasures they built their lives around.

And, of course, space to house the slaves.

Space to house them and open area all around to complicate escapes. There were slaves kept in more tightly populated areas of the cities too but, statistically, they were more likely to slip away, disappearing into a crowd or finding a place to stowaway in a wagon. Of course, many were recaptured to then be publicly executed, and since their former owners were expected to pay for their apprehension and execution, there was a vested interest in preventing escapes.

Nothing motivated the rich like a threat to their wealth.

Tony was still straining to identify a single landmark when the cart rocked to a stop. Tony barely had a chance to register that they’d stopped when his guard smoothly rose from his seat, and Tony jealously followed his easy movements, feeling the ache in his shoulder. Tony’s bound hands were released from where they had been affixed above his head and immediately flopped, uncontrolled,  into Tony’s lap. Tony winced as they began to tingle uncomfortably from the sudden rush of blood, and then winced again as his arm was grasped in an uncomfortably tight grip and he was pulled to his feet, shoulder protesting.

Two soldiers appeared at the back of the cart, these ones recognizably soldiers, wearing proper uniforms. They roughly caught Tony as he was pushed unceremoniously off the cart’s stepless platform. Tony scrambled his feet, trying to get them underneath him as he was dragged toward the imposing wall of a villa, a bruising grip on each arm. He could recognize the general design of the upper class home, but this place wasn’t familiar to him.

The insignia emblazoned on the gate he was fast approaching, however, was all-too familiar to him.

The angular, stylized bird of prey had marked a number of documents and packages that Howard had jealously guarded from Tony’s eyes over the years. Tony had done his share of snooping into things Howard had tried to keep from him, but he’d never been able to discern much about the bird sigil.

 _Guess I’m about to learn something about it_ , came the hysterical thought as Tony stumbled through the gate.

It was … a little disappointing, honestly. It didn’t look like a place with secrets to hide. It wasn’t opulent or grandiose. It was like almost every other place Tony had been in his life, to be honest. Packed earth and white plastered stone.

There was certainly a lot of that though. This place held a wealth of space, if nothing else. Tony found himself dragged across a large open area, larger probably than his home and forge combined. It was hemmed in on three sides by the villa structure; the gated wall behind him, and a red-roofed building on either side. The fourth side, towards which Tony’s escorts marched him, was an open cliff.

 _Hell of a view_ , Tony thought, not without concern as they continued to approach the ledge.

Abruptly, his escorts jerked him to left, towards the taller of the two buildings that flanked the open yard. The lower level was open to the air and crowded with rough-hewn tables and benches, the seats themselves crowded with equally rough looking men. One them, stockily built with dark hair, locked eyes on Tony as he was hurried through and slurped lewdly at him, drawing his tongue across his chin.

Tony was hustled through room after room, around several sharp turns and rushed up at least one flight of stairs. At the end he found himself alone, arms once again chained above his head.

The room was mostly empty, a small table set off center and two large chests of drawers. A single heavy ring was set into the wall, out of reach of all the furniture, high enough that Tony was held on just off his heels.

He didn’t know how long he hung there, straining to see how the ring attached to the wall or to reach one of the drawers to find a tool of some kind, before the door opened again. It was an older man in a plain tunic, another unfamiliar face in a day full of them. Tony remembered the stocky man who’d slobbered at him when he came in, and felt almost weightless moment of relief that it was someone different.  _Stupid_ , he told himself, trying to ignore the feeling.

The man was thin, smiling gently as he placed a large basket on the table. He turned to face Tony, a hand extended.

“My name is Yinson,” he said, releasing Tony hands from the bindings and taking one in both of his own, “You’re Stark, right?”

Tony nodded, unsure what to expect, but Yinson just quietly inspected Tony’s wrists and hands, one after the other, running the pads of his thumbs over the callouses. He sighed softly through his nose, “Do you understand that escape is futile?,” he asked, not raising his eyes from Tony’s rough palms.

Trying to look out the open door behind Yinson without being too obvious, Tony tried to answer the question without really having heard it. “What?”

“I’m to help you prepare for the coming evening,” Yinson moved slightly so that he was directly in Tony’s line of sight, and directly between him and the door. Tony guess he hadn’t been so subtle about that peeking after all. It wasn’t as if subtlety had ever been something he could count on paying off for him anyway. “I can makes things easier on you today, as easy as they can be anyway. And it can make things easier for me as well, later.” Yinson smiled at him, thinly, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “We should start with a bath, but I’d rather not call your escort back. So, before we walk there, do you understand that you can’t escape? And that will only be buying more trouble for the both of us if you try?”

Tony swallowed, his throat dry, his heart racing. “Yeah,” he said, “I understand.” He did.

 

* * *

 

The bath was lavish, at least by Tony’s standards. This was something closer to what he’d expected, but it was unsettling that he was going to be able to use it himself.

“This is for,” Tony paused, reluctant to use the word,“slaves?”  _Like me_ , he thought.

Yinson shook his head, gesturing at Tony to undress, “We typically bathe in the underground bath, it's much more, hmm, austere? But you’re to be the entertainment tonight, and that requires special preparation. Better production for the guests if we just prepare you here.”

Tony froze, suddenly cold all over despite the heavy heat of the bath’s steamy air. He swallowed, and forced himself to continue nonchalantly removing his clothes, “What do you mean by that? Entertainment?”

Yinson smiled at him uncomfortably. Tony thought it was probably meant to put him at ease. Or it was Yinson’s best effort at that, anyway

“It is, not standard practice, not all new slaves are introduced in this way, but it is not unusual. Especially for those brought into service to pay for crimes.”

Tony felt hot tears in his eyes at that, dread of what the evening held for him pushing up from a cold pit in his belly to claw at his throat. “I haven’t done anything,” his voice was thick, to his humiliation, but he needed to say it, for someone to hear it. “I’m charged with something my father did. I don’t even know what it is!”

Yinson turned and collected several bottles from shelves built into the white tiled walls, before lining them up neatly along an edging of iridescent blue tiles at the lip of the bath. “I”m sorry,” he said, finally, “but that does not matter now.”

And Tony knew that. The law hadn’t changed in his lifetime. “Right,” he said, swallowing, trying to push the claw of fear back down, to pack it down somewhere he could carry it. “So, entertainment? What’s that about? A public beating to help bring me in line?”

“Something like that,” Yinson replied, gesturing toward the bath. Tony quickly kicked off the rest of his clothes and slid into the water, the heat of it buring against his clammy skin. “It’s public anyway,” Yinson continued, “but not generally an outright beating.”

“Yeah, what would be the point of cleaning me up for that?”

“Indeed,” Yinson worked a rough cloth in his hand until flowery smelling suds emerged. He handed the cloth to Tony and lowered his head to speak quietly into Tony’s ear, “Stark, I know you do not want any of this. You do not want to be here. It is the same for me, the same for many of us. But since we are here, since our circumstances are what they are, I would like if we could help each other. There are some things I can do for you now. It is not much, but it is not nothing, and it will mean I can do more for you later. And then maybe you can help us both.”

“What do you mean by that?,” Tony asked, speaking quietly to the water.

“You have a reputation, in certain circles. You must know, your work is … distinctive. Exemplary, maybe. Inspired, certainly. I do not think there is anyway you can escape what tonight holds for you, but after tonight?” Yinson shrugged, “I think you may find more opportunities to ... do your own work, let us say, in the days to come.”

Tony was silent for awhile, “I wouldn’t have guessed I had a reputation to precede me. I’ve lived my life pretty anonymously. Are you sure you aren’t thinking of my father?”

“As I said, certain circles. As a medicus responsible for gladiators who wield your weapons, and especially as a medicus of gladiators who also face your weapons in the arena, I’ve had an opportunity to become familiar with some of your work. It strikes me as the type of work that might be useful for getting to someplace soldiers do not want you to go.”

Tony sank under the water, turning the idea over in his head as the rest of the world cut away for a moment and the rest of his life rose behind his closed eyes, terrifying in its lack of detail. He had no idea what lay before him. He rose and turned to Yinson, his face streaming, “Sounds like a shortcut to the underworld, if you ask me.”

“Perhaps,” Yinson looked him in the eyes now, issuing a challenge, “but your life as you knew it is over anyway. I wonder, will you let the conditions of your new life be dictated to you? Or will you have a say in what your new life is to be?”

“It’s hardly new.” Tony watched as Yinson retrieved the basket he had carried from the room they met in, filled with things from the chests in there, things Tony hadn't been able to identify, most of them gold. Jewelry or torture devices or a test to see if Tony was a thief like his father. “My life has always been about what someone else wanted from me.”

Yinson lifted a simple shaving razor from the basket, held it out to Tony. “Then, it seems to me, this is as much an opportunity for you as it is a punishment.”


	2. Chapter 2

There’s a large, gleaming curve of silver hung on the wall, set away from the steam rising from pool. Tony took the razor and carefully smoothed it over his cheeks, tidying up the hair around his mouth: a neat row above his lip, a more elaborate shape on his chin, rising slightly to his lower lip, fanned just wider than his mouth on the underside of his jaw.

Tony hadn’t had a lot of cause for vanity in his life; people didn’t seem to much care what their weapons vendor looked like. But he liked the act of maintaining his facial hair, and he liked what it did for his face. It made his look more sophisticated than he was. Older than he was too, certainly. He felt a little better when he turned back to Yinson. The familiar act of shaving was grounding, a daily morning ritual of putting on his face for the day, of preparing to be someone who could live and work with Howard. The sharp lines of his beard were a comfort, too. Finally, someone he recognized in all this mess. He was still himself. He could still be himself.

“I’m sorry,” Yinson said, “but all of it has to go.”

Tony raised his eyes and met Yinson’s in the mirror. He gazed solemnly back from just behind Tony’s shoulder. “All of what?,” Tony asked, sneering at himself, _isn’t it obvious?_

If Yinson was irritated with Tony’s deliberate incomprehension, he didn’t show it. He responded with a patience Tony doubted he’d have himself in the same situation. “Your hair, Stark. You can keep what’s on your head, your eyebrows. Everything else has to go.”

Tony looked down, silently contemplating the razor in his hand. “You have a beard,” he pointed out, facing Yinson’s reflection again.

“You will more than likely be able to regrow yours, but for tonight …” Yinson shook his head, a gesture of helplessness. “I’m sorry,” he said again.

Tony looked again at the blade in his hand, running the thumb of his other hand across the short hairs under his chin. He could feel the chill in core stretching out again, curling tendrils around his heart and his lungs and his throat as this was about to be taken from him too. He looked down his body, at the dark hair on his chest and legs, curling in the vee of his hips. He swallowed, his throat dry.

“All of it?,” he asked, his voice a rasp. He looked at Yinson and found his expression sympathetic, but he didn’t reply again. Tony knew the answer, anyway.

“Aw, let him keep the beard,” came a new voice from behind them, deep, almost booming in the acoustics of the baths vaulted ceiling. The voice was one that Tony found, finally, blessedly, familiar.

“Obie!” Tony cried, spinning around, elated, dizzy for moment with the rush of relief. Finally, a friend, someone he could trust. A known. Obadiah Stane had been the one person to stand by Howard through his fall. Now, he was the only remaining piece of Tony’s tiny family. He was maybe the only person Tony could be absolutely certain would stand by him through all of this.

What unbelievable fortune that he was here, now.

For a tenuous moment Tony wished he had bit back his cry, because he was certainly imagining this. He was just making a fool of himself in front of Yinson. He was just a fool.

But Stane was still there, standing in the doorway leading into the bath, smiling at him tightly and looking uncomfortable. He wasn’t really looking at Tony. If Tony was hallucinating, this is certainly now how he would have imagined it.

Abruptly Tony turned back around, facing away from Stane and crossing his hands over his groin. He flushed, feeling the heat of it all across his skin even in the steamy bathroom. Yinson lifted a light robe hanging from a nearby hook and draped it over Tony’s shoulders. Tony quickly pushed his arms through the sleeves and tied it with a whispered thanks.

“Give me a moment with the boy, would you?” Stane said, seeming more at ease now, coming toward them.

Yinson hesitated a moment, looking into Tony’s eyes in a way that seemed significant. Tony gave a slight shrug of his shoulders, not understanding, and Yinson looked down. “Of course,” he said, stepping carefully around Stane and closing the door to the bath behind him.

Tony wondered what Yinson might have been trying to hint at, but lost the thought when Obie clapped him on the shoulder. “Sorry about the circumstances, my boy, but it’s good to see you again. It’s been awhile.”

“Not like it was the first time my dad ran you off without an explanation. I was just going to wait it out, like always. He always needs you back sooner or later.” Tony pulled the robe tighter around him, all of a sudden feeling chilled and exposed again. He cleared his throat, “Or needed you back, anyway.”

Stane chuckled. “Yeah, your father wasn’t an easy man to maintain even a business relationship with, nevermind a friendship. But we always managed to work it out in the end. I’ll see to the funeral as best I can, Tony,” he squeezed Tony’s should a little tight, shaking him slightly. “You don’t need to worry about that.”

Truthfully, Tony had hardly thought of Howard in the hours since he’d seen his body, neatly bundled in the street. Even now, with Obie having just brought him up, Tony could barely hold the thought of him in his head. His mind kept fixating on the facts of his current situation, turning to projections of what his future might hold. Howard was gone--he was beyond Tony, and Tony’s concerns, now.

He had to be.

When Tony’s silence dragged on, Stane curled an awkward arm around his shoulders, “You just leave everything to me, all right, son? You need to focus on yourself, on turning your own situation around.”

“Turning it around?,” Tony repeated incredulously. “What are you talking about? It’s an inherited life sentence! There’s no amount of me being a good little slave boy that’s going to change whatever it is that my dad did! Twenty years of resources searching for him, I couldn’t pay that back in ten lifetimes. Turn it around!” Tony giggled helplessly, feeling tears in his eyes. “Why don’t I just teach myself to fly while I’m at it? That’s probably the way I’m most likely to get out of here anyway.” Tony pinched his lips shut against another hysterical laugh.

“Now, Tony, don’t mouth off, that’s really not going to work out for you in this situation.” Stane pulled away from him slightly, drawing himself up so that Tony had to tilt his head back to meet his eyes. “And you should probably refer to me as Councilman.”

“Councilman?” Tony felt himself float back to that weightless, emotionless place of shock. Another rug pulled out from under him. If Obie was a councilman, he should have known what was coming for them. Tony pulled away, asking “Since when? Is that why ...” Tony couldn’t finish the thought, but the timing was too coincidental. Howard has avoided notice for twenty years before today, after all.

Obie knew what he meant anway. He gave Tony a flat, disappointed look, “Of course not. Ov course not! How could you think that? I was only appointed a couple months ago. I won’t actually assume any of the duties until the new year. I’m still on the outside. Tony, I would never--”

“I know,” Tony cut him off, nodding, guilt and relief leaving him hollowed out in the wake of the choking feeling of betrayal. “I’m sorry, I don’t know how I could have thought … even for a second. It’s just this day,” he said, catching another laugh in his throat.

“I get it,” Stane drew closer again. “Anyway, I suspect that’s why we haven’t seen much of each other recently. You know how your father was about anything to do with the empire.”

He did know how his had been about anything to do with the empire. But, “I didn’t even know you were interested in public office. You always said building the business with my dad was your life’s work.”

“You know, Tony, he didn’t exactly consult me when he made his choice and threw out all our military deals all those years ago. Choices that had far reaching consequences for the business we’d built together. And I’ve done my best to stand by him, to preserve his legacy, over the years, but I’ve got my own family to think of too. My having standing with the empire could go a long way for my son. I couldn’t let my whole life be about Howard’s misguided attempt at redemption!” Stane’s voice crept up in volume at the end, so that _redemption_ reverberated back to them from the high ceilings.

“Redemption? Redemption for what? He obviously wasn’t seeking redemption for his crimes against the empire, seeing how he was just _murdered in hiding_  for them.”

“Oh, you know, son, that was just how he saw it. How he justified it to himself.”

“Justified what?,” Tony asked, frustration making him hiss. “You know, don’t you, Obie? What he did? Why I’m here?”

Stane turned away, pulling a cigar from his pocket and turning it in his hand. “You know, Tony, that doesn’t really matter now. What’s more important is that I may know a way to get you out of here, another way for you to repay the empire for the resources wasted in their hunt for your father. I just need you to hang in there for now, to get through tonight. I need you to trust me.” He laid a heavy hand on Tony’s shoulder, pulled him close. “You just need to survive tonight. I’m going to take care of everything else.”

And wasn’t that just what Obie had done for Howard for years? Pulled the strings, arranged the deals, handled the logistics and, when Howard could be prevented from self-sabotaging, the people.

Two deliberate knocks sounded against the door of the bath before Yinson stepped back inside. “I’m sorry, Councilman,” he said, head bowed, “but time grows short and Stark is far from ready.”

“Right, right,” Stane stepped back from Tony and tucked the cigar back into his pocket. “I’ll be back for you, Tony,” he said pausing on his way out, the bulk of his body obscuring Yinson, where he stood holding the door. “We’ll figure this out.”

And then he was gone.

Yinson closed the door behind him, and Tony tried to gather himself. The surreality of talking to Obie, feeling for a moment he was back in his old life, like he could just go on being himself, had rattled him. He could scarcely imagine getting back to the numb place that had protected him so far, that had made whatever the coming night and days held seem … manageable, even in their mystery. Like it didn’t really matter exactly what would come. Tony knew the general shape of things, knew what everyone knew about how criminals could expect to live out their days. It would be manageable.

But now he had to wonder, what if it didn’t have to be manageable? What if Tony could just be free? He couldn’t go back to his old life, he watched it go up in flames, but he could make his own way forward.

Startled out of his thoughts when Yinson cleared his throat, loudly, Tony turned to him. Looked him directly in the eyes.

“Tell me what’s coming tonight,” he spoke it like a command, as near as he could manage. “No more sideways speak about it. I need to know what to expect.”

Yinson broke eye contact first, grimacing.

“It is,” Yinson sighed, before haltingly continuing. “I told you, it is not the usual way. And it is not something generally approved of, or something of which I like to speak. But you are right: you do need to know what to expect.”

“Here,” Yinson beckoned to a woman standing by the door, whose entrance into the bath Tony had missed entirely. “I will keep talking, I will tell you what to expect tonight, but we must continue with preparations. We have much still left to do. Lay here, Stark, on your stomach,” he gestured to one of two broad benches set by the side of the pool. After waiting a moment while Tony stood motionless, Yinson added some incentive, “You can be late, Stark, and you can be unprepared, but you cannot escape. Please,” he gestured again to the bench, “let us prepare you. I will tell you what to expect. Natasha will help with the rest.”

“So, if I can be unprepared, can that include not getting shaved like a show pig?”

Yinson sighed, “I won’t force you, but if you don’t let us do this, some of the guests tonight may decide to it themselves. And they will not be knowledgeable about how to do, and they will likely not be very careful.” He gestured again to the bench, “Please.”

Tony looked toward where the door to the bath stood open in the wake of Stane’s departure. He could see the shadow of a guard against the far wall of the hallway. He lay down.

The woman, Natasha, moved up beside him, spreading wide swathes of a warm, sweet-smelling substance, more like honey than anything else Tony could identify, over his arms, his legs, his chest. Tony flinched at the first contact. Yinson had told him all the hair would have to go; Tony had assumed it would be shaved. Yinson helped her smooth strips of cloth over the substance. “It’s a show, of a kind,” Yinson began, pausing when Tony yelped as a first strip was wrenched off. “It is not precisely allowed, under the letter of the law, but in this house much of patronage is of high enough standing, tied close enough to the heart of the empire, that it passes without reproach.” Tony clenched his teeth as another strip was removed. Natasha smoothed her palm over the reddened skin, followed it with a cool, green gel. After a moment the sharp pain gave way to a stinging warmth.

Tony opened his eyes and fixed his gaze on Yinson, “Just tell me. Please. I--” _I already know_ , he almost said. “I need to hear it.”

It was Natasha who finally told him. “It’s a pleasure show. You’ll be,” she paused to quickly pull a strip from his chest, leaving him breathless for a moment, “available for the guests.”

Tony closed his eyes, let the knowledge sink in. It was what he had suspected, but it’s still a blow to his nerves, to have it confirmed. He’d thought maybe was he just imagining the worst possibility. “Isn’t that counter to the empire’s values?”

Yinson huffed out a bitter sounding chuckle, and Natasha just smiled thinly. “You’ll find the values the elite hold to are different from those shared with populous at large,” she said.

“And I’m not going to be given any kind of choice in this? I couldn’t, I don’t know, opt for labor in the mines instead?”

“You’re a slave now, Stark. Your crimes were your consent to be put to use however the empire--or the empire’s favored elite--see fit.” Yinson held up a hand to forestall Tony’s rising objection, “The crimes for which you were sentenced are yours now, under the law.”

Tony gave a shrill ‘hmmm’ as Natasha pulled a strip from his inner thigh, smiling slyly at him when he craned his neck upward to glare at her for her timing.

“All right,” he said, letting his head drop back to the bench with a painful thunk. He closed his eyes, watched the few pops of light behind his lids. “All right, thanks for telling me. All right, so how do I prepare for something like that?”

Yinson bent to where the basket he’d brought into the bath rested on the floor, and then stood, raising an oblong glass object with flat disc at one end. He lifted Tony’s nearest hand, placing the strange glass rod into Tony’s palm.

“And this is supposed to help me?”

“It will help you.” Yinson met his eyes then, “I told you it would not be much. But you need only survive this.”

“What the fuck is happening,” Tony whispered fervently.

 

* * *

 

At the end of his preparations, Tony found himself alone, his hands once again bound together. He was tied to a ring affixed to the wall, a chain stretched taut to the collar around his neck, like a dog in a yard.

The room he was in now looked like every story he’s ever heard about how the upper class live. Everything around him was softly extravagant. The walls were draped with long curtains of heavy fabric, embroidered so heavily with gold thread that they glittered like a star strewn sky in the room’s low light. The walls and floors are gleaming, highly polished marble, and every bit of every metal fixture Tony can see is gold.

Even himself, in his current dress, at the end of Yinson and Natasha’s preparations--he was something ostentatiously beautiful. He looked like he belonged here, in this room. Not like someone who would be coming and going freely from this place, of course, or someone who would be speaking for themselves. But standing against the wall, quiet and unsure of exactly the right thing to do, he blended.

He was barefoot on the hard floor, the soles of his feet and his knees aching with it. He shifted his weight, trying to find a position that would let at least part of his legs rest, but all it brought was sharp intake of breath from himself, as the glass rod--the plug, Yinson had told him--shifted inside him.

Yinson had walked him through how to insert it, giving him a small container of oil and the opportunity to do it himself. It had been awkward, but at least less awkward than having a near total stranger perform the task on him. Though, as Tony considered it now, letting someone else do it might have been a good warm-up for what the evening held. At least Yinson treated him like a person, a treatment Tony suspected he shouldn’t count on receiving much of in the coming night.

So Tony had opted for the privacy, and thanks to some of the more inventive smithing techniques he had used over the years, he had some practice doing delicate work on things he couldn’t always get in his direct line of sight. And he’d been able to rely on more than just his hands to tell him how he was progressing. He’d first tried to do just some perfunctory stretching with just a couple fingers but, wound tightly with anxiety and apprehension as he was, he hadn’t been able to work even the flared tip inside himself.

In the end, it had taken a third finger and nearly all the oil he’d been given. He’d had to get himself quite worked up, flexing his fingers over the nub inside him, the one that sent a delicious line of fire singing up into his belly, before he could feel the give in his rim he was looking for. There had still been a burn as the plug went in, a moment when he felt a swoop in his stomach, fearing that he was about to tear himself as he relentlessly pressed it forward. Once it was fully in, the round disc at the end seated against his rim, the burn had faded away as he felt himself … open inside. He felt himself gradually give way to accommodate it.

He hadn’t stroked himself off then, kneeling there on the white tiled floor. But he’d considered it.

The sensation wasn’t totally unfamiliar to him. Tony had tried working a couple of his fingers inside himself before, and he’d enjoyed that, quite a bit, but this was bigger was in every dimension. The weight of it was persistently present.

It was not entirely unpleasant. There was a kind of serenity that came in its wake. It made everything feel easier, almost, as if it anchored him. Like a buoy in a storm, he might be tossed about by events to come, but he was anchored here.

It was the aspect of the preparation that he’d dreaded the most, moreso even than the hair removal. But standing here, the sensation was perhaps the most pleasant of all his … adornments.

Natasha had first rimmed his eyes in kohl, which had in that instant felt extravagant.

But then he had been painted with oil and a gold colored dust, until his limbs hardly appeared his own, or even those of a human, but rather those a gilded statue brought to life. He was strung with seemingly miles of whisper thin chains, wrought with what must be a copper and gold alloy, appearing startling red against the true gold of his painted skin. The collar draped over his shoulders, held in place by bands around his upper arms, and swooped in layer after layer of scalloped edges. A matching belt hung in loops to just the top of his hips, leaving him bare to the knees, where a matching pair of greaves then covered his calves, spilling in red gilded waves over the tops of his bare feet. The shackles were each a solid band of true gold metal extending halfway up his forearm from his wrist, covered in fine swirls of the red-gold chains, each only soldered intermittently to the bracelet, so that the loose curves of each chain hissed against the solid metal of the shackle with his every movement. A cuff on each ear, trailing a curtain of chains along his jaw. On his cock, a single chain secured behind his sack held a small plate of the red-gold metal, dangling three of the thin chains, encircling his shaft and tickling in some of his most sensitive places.

Perhaps the most uncomfortable was the disc of blue glass, suspended over his breastbone by a pair slender chains, each clamped to one of his nipples.

He fixated on the pain there, two bright points on his chest resonating into little more than a dull ache. It was tempting to slip away, to think about an engineering problem, to sink into it. Instead, Tony used to pain to focus himself here, to think about Yinson’s words, about how Tony could could find a way, or make a way, out of this.

But first there was tonight, and his first, too much, taste of what this was to be.

Tony looked around the room, again, but there was still nothing in reach. He looked down at the shackles on his wrists, and while he could see how he might have released someone else from them, he could imagine no way to release them while he himself was bound by them.

The creak of a door pulled his attention from the shackles. He couldn’t see any doors from where he was bound, but he can hear steps progressing toward him. It sounded like maybe a single set of steps, a single person.

Tony hadn’t given much thought to how the party would start. He knew he was waiting alone, and then his thoughts jumped to how he might handle himself in the midst of things, picturing himself surrounded, people grabbing and pulling from all sides. Obie and Yinson had both told him he only had to survive this, he just had to find a way through. Tony had planned, as much as it could be called a plan, to just grit his teeth and endure it, because you couldn’t reason with people in a group like that, not without something to tip the balance of power in your favor.

But a single person was a completely different scenario, with different possibilities. It was unlikely, but maybe not entirely impossible, a tiny, hopeful voice insisted in his mind, that he could plead his case. Surely there were some among those in power here who would hear his story and feel … what, exactly? Sympathy? Responsibility, maybe. Pity, even. Tony would certainly be willing to swallow whatever pride he might have left, if pity would change his fate for the night.

That was probably a long shot, though. A longer shot than he really dare hope for. A more sure shot would be to provoke someone, push them past their own control. If he was infuriating enough, and then hurt badly enough early enough, maybe this little show would be cut short. Maybe he could escape with just a beating.

Assuming, of course, that were some sort of upper limit imposed on the damage that could be inflicted on him in this situation.

Obie and Yinson had both told him to just survive this night--as if the alternative were a real possibility. Probably the smart thing to do would be to keep his down, to just endure it.

The steps had stopped near him, in front of him, maybe a little to the left. And Tony, despite his resolution of just a moment before, raised his head and started talking to cover the shock of recognizing the face before him. “Special little pre-viewing, just for you?,” he tried, locking his jaw in a bare-toothed grin.

When Tony had first seen him, crudely wagging his tongue at Tony as he was dragged through what appeared to be the slave’s mess, Tony had assumed he was a slave. He had been eating at a rough-hewn table set on a dirt floor. He had been sweaty, covered in grime, and sporting at least a finger-length of unkept beard. He had appeared as a laborer, his body broad and strong as if honed by long days and heavy burdens.

Now, as he stood before Tony, it was only his sun-dark skin that made him seem like a man who toiled through his days. He was bare chested, his hips wrapped in pristine white fabric, the edges enforced with enough gold embroidery to stiffen the cloth into straight edges. His face was freshly shaved, though his hair was dark enough, coarse enough, that it still shaded his jaw. His hair, neatly trimmed, was swept into a peak running front to back on the center of his head.

He looked, _like someone who came for a sex party_ , an unhelpful voice in Tony’s mind supplied. Which was an incredibly specific look, and not one that he had ever pictured before today, but he’d been giving it a lot of thought while he waited here. What the people at this party would look like, the sorts of things they would say.

How they would touch him.

This man, he wasn’t really the kind of patron Tony had been picturing, he didn’t have the loose-limbed grace that a life of enforced leisure seemed to grant the members of the upper class, but his expression was--it was exactly what Tony had been picturing. The look of someone about to take something, for whom the pleasure was in the taking, in the meeting of resistance and grinding it down, in depriving someone else of anything they valued.

He was walking in a slow arc around Tony, eyeing him up. Grinning at what he was seeing. Pleased. Like a snaking finding a young mouse, alone in the grass. Like Tony was easy prey.

It was a shit addition to what had already been a long and trying day. Tony had known it was coming, but here, facing the reality of it was pissing Tony off.

For most of the day Tony’s temper had been a distant, unreachable fire, smothered by shock and uncertainty. Now, at what was possibly the worst possible moment, he found it stoked. “You think you might want to draw a picture? It’ll last longer,” he spat, then ground his teeth together. _You need to be smart about this, Stark_ , he thought, trying to rein it in.

“Oh, good!” The man finally spoke, “That’s good. I was starting to think that maybe you didn’t have any fight in you, and it’s much too early for that. You just got here. You’ve got to fight it,” he said, stepping forward. He brought his hand up, fast, taking Tony’s jaw in a bruising grip and tipping his head up. “Just for a little while, sweetheart,” he continued, grinning, as Tony’s bound hands flew up to pull ineffectually at his wrist. “That’s the fun part.” He tightened his grip a fraction and Tony wheezed.

“I know you don’t think you’re here for fun, but I’m here to show you, special, just how fun this new life of yours can be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the continued lack of Steven, but he's so close! You might even say he's right around the corner ...

**Author's Note:**

> If you have thoughts to share, I'd love to hear them here or [on tumblr](http://www.tumblr.com/blog/ferrousmanibus)!


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